I tie a string around the stem and hang them upside down. :)

I hang them up in bundles and also lay out flat layers in baskets. I have several baskets that are wide and flat for this. I just put a cloth napkin down in the basket and lay out the leaves or petals to dry. For roots and fruits I have built a drying rack out of pop bottle crates from the grocery store. I just put in a layer of the herb material on one crate, then stack a blank crate, and then another layer of herb material etc. I prop the whole thing up on blocks or some upside down crates to get good air flow and put in a dry area of the house. Works really well for the larger pieces.

Update! Did some more microwave drying today— Oregano, Sage, Rosemary, and Mint (don’t know what kind— it grows wild around here). Results were spectacular. Pix in my journal, but here’s the lowdown:

Oregano. Only had 1 cup because the plants are still reestablishing themselves and I didn’t want to cut them back too far. Only zapped it in four 30sec bursts and ended up with about a 1/2 cup.

Rosemary. Surprisingly watery. Took 6 minutes. I did this in 1 minutes intervals and had to change towels twice. Last minute on 60% power. Started with 3c, dried down to about 1c. (sorry, those of you who think in either ounces or metric).

Sage. 7 minutes in 6 1-minute bursts and two 30sec; again very watery, changed towels twice. This was difficult because the leaves were quite heavy and the towels boiling hot (duh). Changed towels at 2 min and 4 min, last two zaps without turning at 70% power.

Mint. only had 1 1/2 c. to start because I completely forgot that most of my mint is growing in a pot and I missed it. (It’s been a long morning.) This went down by half, but it only two 3:20, in six 30sec bursts and 1 final 20sec at 70% power. Removed bottom towel at 2min, but just folded over the top one because there was so little. Ended up with about 3/8c.

Highly recommended method. Herbs retained color, shape, and scent, and the whole house smells absolutely amazing. Pix in journal, where this is also repeated. (sorry— wanted to be able to find it again, so I’m giving myself lots of options.)

Thyme did beautifully with the microwave method. 8 or 9 × 30 seconds.

That’s a really good idea – have you a masterplan for getting the zest off though I have about 3 different impements all just amazingly time consuming and messy?

Last time I got serious about drying myself citrus rind, I took it off with a potato peeler then julienned it with a chef’s knife. I might have gotten a bit more pulp than I would’ve with a zester, but it was substantially faster than using a zester, so I considered it a more than fair trade.

I’m glad they worked. :) I ate my mint too fast to dry any this year. It was it’s first year, so hopefully it will be better established and more productive next year.

I just wanted to share what I do:

I have a pot rack above my stove, that’s really far too low to hang pots on (you smash your head if they’re on there, kind of a dumb design, you’d need ceilings that are massively tall for this pot rack to fit properly and we don’t, but the whole thing came with the house). So I took the hooks off (now used for drying yarn that I’ve spun or dyed outside), and now the main part of the pot rack is the perfect height to hang bundles of herbs on. Since it’s right above the stove, there’s lots of radiant heat that comes from it, but not too much as to make the herbs too dry and crispy.

It also is a lot quicker than just letting them dry anywhere else hanging in the house.

I don’t dry Basil or Parsley, I prefer my leaf-herbs fresh or “semi-fresh”. I chop my basil leaves and pack them tightly in ice-cube trays, wet them, pack each cube tight squeezing out excess water, and freeze them. Invest $10 in a Zip-Lock Vacuum Sealer. Place the herb cubes in a gallon vacuum bag leaving about an inch between each cube, and vacuum seal them. I just pull out a basil cube and toss it in my sauce, then reseal the bag and pop it back in the freezer. Its as close to fresh as you can get. I do the same with Parsley.

Wow! What a neat discussion! I have been drying them in a dehydrator, or in the oven on a foil pizza pan, and that worked good for me. But I do like the ice cube idea. Wish I had more room to try that! In the oven or dehydrator, I do not have to check on them very often. It’s great!

The whole freezing in icecube trays in alien to me, but it does sound interesting. You freeze them and then put them in ziploc bags?

I need to do some of this with my parsley and rosemary. Thanks for the reminder! :)

@ nax- even though we have an air freshener built into our freezer as well as baking soda box, we have discovered that anything that is left in the freezer for a lengthy period of time eventually picks up some odor from the freezer that we can’t even smell! The ice cubes don’t, but we go through those fairly quickly in our home even in winter!!

I’m bumping up this post, mostly to make it easier for me to find it. But also because a new season is upon us and the info here is invaluable. At least I think so. I wish there was some way to fave group posts like journal posts.

I use all the methods discussed – but while gathering herbs I use rubber bands to bunch b/c it’s quicker. I usually dry my herbs such as mints by hanging. I’ve tried microwaving but I must be too impatient b/c I can’t get it to work well for me.

My favorite for basil, aloe, comfrey, is ice cube trays. The basil for cooking with in soups/sauces and my egg salad. The aloe/comfrey for burns. I harvested an ice cube tray full of aloe last winter. When I was out in the heat last week it felt great on my forehead and arms. I suppose you could take commercially prepared aloe and do the same thing.

I like to vacuum seal my herb ice-cubes. I take one out and reseal them. I can keep them for months without freezer burn.

Hmmmm…. off to google…

The particular Ziplock pump system currently advertised on their website seems to use a round one-way valve-port in the side of the special bag, and a handheld manual suction pump with a snout-thing that fits over that valve-port. Now that I think of it, I accidentally bought a box of the bags with the special valve-port in them by mistake about a year ago, even though I don’t own the pump gadget. :-P

http://www.ziploc.com/Pages/VacuumFreezerSystem.aspx

http://www.ziploc.com/Products/Pages/VacuumFreezerSystem.aspx?SizeName=Starter%20Kit

The other specialized gadget I’m familiar with, completely separate from the Ziplock system, is the Seal-A-Meal which also uses special plastic… it’s an electronic machine that sucks out the extra air and then melts the plastic to seal the food into a pouch… http://www.sealameal.com/

As long as we’re on the subject of storing herbs, I also use a Food-Saver Vacuum system. It has an attachment for Ball or Mason Jars. Vacuum Sealers are a great device to keep herb fresh as well as keep those veggies from freezer burning. I pre-freeze everything separately on a tray, otherwise they turn into a frozen block. It’s the one kitchen utensil I use most.

Thanks, N20863. I had a great time and my garden was fine when I got back. Of course I had garden withdrawal. My wife went shopping in the Haitian Port, and I took a cab inland to check things out. Haiti was a real wake-up call. The land is completely void of trees and shrubs from harvesting anything that burns, and the rich rainforest topsoil eroded away years ago. They are in dire need of sustainable agriculture. We’re renting a beachhouse in Jamaica for 3 weeks next summer, so I’m going to spend some time in Haiti with a family I met, to see if I can help them rebuild their soil. They didn’t even know what compost was – they just dig and plant. I’m going to take some 20-20-20 with me.